grandad kit

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Another wasted journey

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

It's happened again! Remember I told you about a wasted trip to Newcastle, well, this time it was a wasted trip to London. I had expected to see someone in London today, but at the last minute they sent me a message to say they were in Newcastle! So I went from the North East to see them in London, and instead they went from London to the North East!

So I got the earliest train I could from London and went back up to my home in the North East. Then I jumped in my car and drove up to Newcastle, expecting to see these people at their offices in Newcastle, but they weren't there either. Eventually I tracked them down in an hotel in Newcastle and finally had the meeting, which I'm pleased to say was very worthwhile.

Do you know, I've actually got a day at home tomorrow!

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Brussels in a day

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today I flew to Brussels and back again in the same day. The reason is that I needed to be back in London for a meeting tomorrow. After flying back to London, this time I was able to stay with Nana Ann at her house in London. The meetings I had in Brussels were quite important - I was the chairman of the first meeting (they call it the President!) and so I had to make sure that everybody who wnated to got to speak. Remember these are people from different countries all over Europe. They speak in their own language, but there are interpreters who translate one language into another.

So, if the person is speaking in a language you can't understand, you put on headphones and dial up "English" (in my case) and so you can listen to the translation. So when you speak, you have to be careful not to use a lot of unusual words, or else the translation might not be accurate.

You Mam would be very useful in Brussels - she speaks at least three languages. Remember you have cousins living in Switzerland who will be learning to speak French and German as they grow up. I'm sure your Mam will make sure you learn to speak other languages in a few years. It's very useful to be able to talk to people from other countries in their own language.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Airport Hotel

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Grandad was up early this morning to catch the train to London. The way I buy my train tickets now is that I can book them from home on the internet and then go to a machine at the Railway Station, type in a number, and out come my tickets! This is much better than having to queue up at the counter at the station, and maybe miss my train.

Then it was a meeting in London, but instead of staying with Nana Ann at her house in London, after my meeting I went straight to Heathrow Airport to stay at an hotel there. The reason for that is, the plane I have to catch tomorrow morning is so early, if I stayed at Nana Ann's house, I wouldn't be able to get to the Airport in time to catch my plane. So guess what? Nana Ann came to the Airport after she finished work in London to stay there with me! The reason is, the room costs exactly the same if one person is staying there or two, so Nana Ann decided she wasn't going to waste the opportunity to stay in an hotel for free!

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Busy day

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Grandad's always saying he's had a busy day, but I'm not complaining. Having a busy day means I've got lots of work to do, and that's the way I like it. The reason I've been busy today is that I'm going to be away for most of next week, so I have to make sure I have everything ready.

I'll tell you about it day by day.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Film man

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today I went to see a man about making a television film. It's just a short film, but there's still a lot of work to be done. This man is a director - he is in charge of the whole thing. He tells the person with the camera what to film, and afterwards he decides which bits of film will be used in the final programme. My job is to write the words that the people will say - it's called a script.

I would like to do a lot more film writing, but it's very hard to get this kind of work as lots and lots of people want to do it and there is only so much work to go round. So I am very pleased to be involved in making this short television film. I may keep a copy and show it to you one day.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

A Double journey

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Grandad was off to one of his favourite places today - Newcastle upon Tyne. You know why it's called "Newcastle upon Tyne" because the city is on the River Tyne, also one of my favourite rivers. I had several people to see, but one of them wasn't in. When I was half way home, he rang me on my mobile (and yes I did stop the car to answer it!) to say he was now at his house. So I had to go back to Newcastle to see him - but this sort of thing happens all the time, so there's no point in me getting cross about it.

Once again we were choosing photographs for a book. This is quite difficult, because when you have lots and lots of photographs and only room for so many in the book, it's very hard to choose. And different people have different opinions. That's why it takes so long. Even then, when you have finally chosen, when the book is published, someone is bound to say "why did you include this photo?" or "Why didn't you include this one?" But you can't please all the people all the time - that's a common saying and it's very true.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Barry the Builder

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Barry the Builder came back to our house today, bright and early, He mended the ceiling in the hall, the one that fell down over the Christmas holidays. Barry and his son mixed up a lot of plaster and Barry put it up all over the places where the old plaster had fallen down. Then he smoothed it all off with a trowel - this is very important.

Now the new plaster has to be left to dry for two or three weeks. Then Barry will have to find a special kind of paper - like wallpaper, except it's for a ceiling - and put it up over the new plaster so that it matches with the rest of the ceiling. This won't be easy! The ceilings in our house are very high - our house is over 100 years old - so Barry had to climb up on ladders to do the work. His son always holds the ladder at the bottom to make sure his Dad doesn't fall off!

Nana Ann has been very sad today, because it was exactly a year ago that her Mum died. Nana Ann's Mum was nearly 90 years old and she had been ill for some time, so it wasn't such a shock when it happened. But lots of people nowadays live until they are a hundred years old!

Nana Ann and I hope to be around for many years yet, so however old you are when you can come and see us, we will be there.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Hunting the wild boar

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Now I promised you a story about hunting in the forest, so here it is. This happened in County Durham which in those days was ruled by the Bishop of Durham. He lived in a magnificent Palace, and he owned all the land round about, especially the forest where he used to go and hunt.

Now it so happened that there were wild boar in the forest (wild boar is like a pig, only much bigger, with tough hair on its body and really sharp tusks in it mouth - a real danger, even today) and one of these boar had grown to an enormous size. This huge wild boar was terrorising the neighbourhood, attacking people and animals that went near it. There was no dog big enough to tackle it, and many had to come away with wounds from its big, sharp tusks.

The Bishop didn't like this, becaise the boar was frighteneing away his deer and that spoiled his hunting. And the Bishop didn't want to tackle the boar himself - he was too scared! And when the Bishop sent his men out into the forest to catch this boar, they all came back without success. The boar was so fierce, it frightened away the men, their dogs and their horses.

One day a man called Pollard came to the see the Bishop in his magnficent Palace. He went up to the Bishop and said he could catch the boar - and kill it - so it wouldn't be a danger any more. Pollard said "If I kill this boar, what will you give me as my reward?" The Bishop was so pleased that this Pollard was brave enough to tackle the boar, that he said "If you kill this boar, I will give you as much land as you can ride around in a day!"

Now that was a very good reward, as not many people had land - apart from the King, the Lords and the Bishops! - so having a good piece of land that that you could farm yourself was a very big thing. And the amount of land a man could ride around in one day would amount to enough for a very large farm. If Pollard got his land, he would be very well off. So he took up the challenge. But before he went, the Bishop said that Pollard would have to bring back proof that he had killed the boar, or there would be no reward.

So Pollard went into the forest, but he left his horse tied to a tree. He did that because he knew his horse would be frightened by the boar, and might throw him off onto the ground where the boar could get at hime with its sharp tusks. So Pollard crept into the forest, and, sure enough, he found the boar. He treid to creep up on the boar to stab it with his knife, but it was too clever for him. The boar sprang up and charged at Pollard who jumped out of the way. He had to be very quick to avoid its sharp tusks.

The boar charged again and again, and every time Pollard was able to jump out of the way. But it was a hot day, and soon Pollard started to get tired, but the boar didn't seem to get tired atall. Pollard knew he had to do something. He tried to stab the boar with his knife as it ran past, but his knife slipped off the thick hair on the boar's back. Then he tried catching hold of the boar, but again Pollard found he could not get hold of it. Then Pollard had an idea. The next time the boar charged at him, instead of jumping to the side, he jumped straight up over the boar's head and landed behind it. The boar stopped, and this was the chance Pollard had been waiting for. He quickly turned and grabbed the boar's tail. The Boar tried to run away, dragging Pollard behind it. But Pollard, holding on to the boar's tail with one hand and with his knife in the other hand, stabbed the boar it its stomach and killed it stone dead.

Totally exhausted, Pollard lay down to sleep. But before he did so, he cut out the boar's tongue and put it in his pocket. That was the proof he needed to show the Bishop he had indeed killed the boar and would be able to claim his reward. The boar was far too heavy to carry back to the Bishop's Palace. So Pollard lay down and went fast asleep.

As Pollard was sleeping, another man came through the forest. He saw the dead boar lying there and Pollard, fast asleep, and he worked out what had happened. Now this man, let's call him Quince - had heard about the reward the Bishop was offering to anyone who killed the boar, so he determined he would get the reward for himself. So Quince cut off the boar's head and took it back to the Bishop. "Well done, Quince," said the Bishop, "you have rid the forest of a very dangerous animal. You will have your rewrad, but first let's have a drink to celebrate!" The Bishop was already thinking how he would get out of giving away so much of his land.

So Quince, the Bishop and all the Bishop's retainers were having a celebration in the Bishop's Palace when in came Pollard. "I've come to claim my rewrad," he said. But the Bishop said "This man Quince here, he will get the reward. He killed the boar, and he brought back its head to prove it." So Pollard said "look insided the boar's mouth, you will find it has no tongue." So the Bishop looked inside the boar's mouth, and lo and behold it had no tongue!

Pollard pulled the boar's tongue out of his pocket and said "Here is the boar's tongue. I killed the boar and I cut out its tongue. This man Quince is an imposter!" "Quite right," said the Bishop, "Quince, you have been telling lies. Now get out of my Palace and don't some back!" But that's not the end of the story.

After he had drunk some wine, Pollard said goodbye to the Bishop. "Where are you going?" said the Bishop. "I'm going to get on my horse and ride round as much land as I can in a day, and that land will be mine to keep - just as you promised." But the Bishop got very angry. He had changed his mind. He didn't want to lose all that land, even though he had almost all the rest of County Durham as his own. "No, Pollard, all I can let you have is as much land as you can ride round in an hour. That will be enough reward for you."

Pollard thought for a moment. He couldn't challenge the Bishop, who was a very powerful man. And if he tried to prove that the Bishop had promised him a lot more land, who would back him up? All the Bishop's retainers would say that the Bishop was right. So Pollard said "Very well, Bishop, I'm sorry you went back on your word. But there's nothing I can do about that. I will accept what you say, and I will claim only the amount of land I can ride round in one hour."

So Pollard got on his horse, and rode right round the Bishop's Palace!!! The he came back in, and told the Bishop what he had done. "This Palace now belongs to me, and you will have to get out and I will live here instead!" He told the Bishop, who was absolutely flabbergasted, if not discumknockerated. "Phw phw phw phw phw!" was all the Bishop could say. "Come on, Bishop, off you go," said Pollard, "this Palace belongs to me now!" "But I don't want to lose my beuatiful Palace with all its treasures, its furnishings and fine paintings. This Palace is worth more to me than all the land in County Durham."

"Then I will allow you to keep your Palace and all its treasures," said Pollard, "But in return, you must keep your original promise to me and give me all the land I can ride round in a day. "Yes, yes, anything, anything," said the Bishop, "Just as long as I can keep my lovely Palace and all its treasures."

So that's the end of the story. Pollard rode his horse round a huge piece of land and became a very well off farmer, if not really realy rich like the Bishop. And the Bishop kept his Palace. And do you know, the Bishop of Durham (not the same one of course) still lives in that same Palace to this very day! I'll show it to you one day, with all its treasures, furnitur and paintings.

And if you lokk on the maps of County Durham, even today, you'll see a big piece of land marked "Pollard's Lands". So the story must be true!

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Robin Hood

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

A much longer journey today - to "Robin Hood" country. I'm sure you've heard of Robin Hood. He lived a long time ago. He was an outlaw and the story is he "robbed the rich and gave to the poor." I'm not sure about that, but there are some great stories about Robin Hood and his band of "Merry Men" who lived in the forest and hunted the deer with their bows and arrows. Now that bit I do believe.

Now in those days the forests all belonged to the King and his Nobles (the Lords who lived in the big castles). They kept all the forests to themselves, because they liked to hunt the deer. If ever you come to visit me and Nana Ann, I can show you exactly where this happened near where we live. Anyway, the King and his Lords got very angry if anybody else went into the forest and killed one of their deer - even though some people were so poor and so hungry, there was nothing else they could do to get food to eat.

If any of these people were caught, they were punished very severely. So what happened was they became "outlaws" and lived in the forest, hiding from the soldiers who went to look for them and capture them. Some people say that Robin Hood never existed, but I'm sure he did - although I don't think he was such a goody-goody as he has been made out to be.

I'll tell you a story about hunting in the forest tomorrow.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

Where I used to live

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today Grandad was on his travels again, up into Northumberland near where I used to live when I was married to Nana Harriet. The man said to me "do you know where to come?" and I said "Yes, I used to live near where you are." And I remembered exactly the way to go.

This doesn't always work. I remember telling Nana Ann that I knew exactly where I used to live when I was a boy - exactly your age - but when I got there, I realised I was in the wrong place! The reason was, instead of remembering the place where I used to live with my Mam and Dad, instead I remembered the name that was on the front of the tram we used to catch from the town centre. My Mam and Dad always told me that if I ever got lost when I was out with them in the town centre, I was to catch the tram by myself and get off at "our stop" which I knew. And I was no older then than you are now! All those years later, instead of going to "our stop" I took Nana Ann to the depot - the end of the line - which was the name on the front of the tram. So you can't always rely on your memory, especially when you have lived a long time.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann